Empty Chamber
by Phantazm
Summary: Immediately following his confrontation with Sephiroth, Vash stows away on a passenger liner bound for points unknown, his only companions solitude and misery.  But one other shares his burdens, one separated by only yards which may as well be light years


_Empty Chamber_

The transport had lifted with just the faintest vibration, hardly a clue as to the unimaginable energies that had been harnessed to break it free of Ganap IV's gravitational pull. Now, under approximately eighty-five percent gravity as it accelerated, the passengers began to move about the ship as they waited for the massive vessel to enter the hypergate on its return to Earth. Due to the physics involved in warping space and the violent releases of energy as a hypergate fires, no gate would be constructed or used less than one hundred thousand miles from an Earth-sized planet; and the bulk of the transport dictated a slow, leisurely trek to the gate.

Most passengers chafed at the hours-long journey, although covering a hundred thousand miles in hours still entailed quite a bit of speed, but one of the passengers didn't mind so much. In fact, he had nothing but time. Too much of it.

Vash the Stampede, the Humanoid Typhoon, sat in a dimly lit cargo hold, almost—but not quite—thinking about nothing. He was trying his best, though. He was seated on a stack of metal suitcases with his arms crossed on a crate before him, his face mostly hidden by his crossed arms. _So tired…_ A small plate of pilfered doughnuts sat untouched on the crate. Vash had snuck them from cold storage out of habit and had let them thaw, intending to find a way to heat them up, but…

He took his focus from the unmoving stars outside the porthole and looked at his ephemeral reflection in the glass. His once-blond hair had gone nearly black, an indicator of how much energy his Angel Arm had expended trying to kill that…who- or whatever he had confronted in the cave. Perhaps that was the source of the soul-draining lassitude that smothered him; it had been his very life force that had powered the world-shattering blast of his Arm.

_No,_ he thought. It was more. It was much more. Aided by his fatigue, his memories trickled to the fore, caressing his conscious mind with ethereal tendrils of color and sound, and Vash remembered so long ago the sight of stars just like these hanging like fiery snowflakes in the velvet void outside another ship. A woman's reflection moved into the porthole and Vash started. _Rem…!_

She had come to see him as she had promised, and also as promised, she had brought a plate of doughnuts to share. One hand held a pile of perfectly glazed, fluffy perfection and her other hand held two mugs, one of coffee and the other of hot chocolate.

"Thanks for remembering!" Vash said, his youthful voice ringing out bright and clear as he hopped down from his bunk. He leaped into the chair opposite Rem as she placed the treats before him.

"As if I could forget," she said, smiling broadly. "You'd never let me live it down if I didn't bring doughnuts."

The youth handed Rem a few napkins and placed one on his lap. "I'd forgive you, trust me."

"Eventually."

"Eventually," Vash agreed, his mouth full. "Good timing, Rem, I was starving."

She sipped from her coffee and smothered a laugh. "I can tell. So what were you thinking about at the window?"

Vash shrugged, looking at the last remaining bite of his doughnut. "Nothing," he said. "Maybe just doughnuts, maybe just stuff."

"What kind of stuff does a young boy think of?" Rem wondered aloud. "Besides doughnuts and hot chocolate?"

Vash said nothing as he reached for his chocolate, but the faint reddening of his ears gave Rem a clue. She smiled some more. "Thinking about when we land?"

"Yeah, that," Vash answered evasively. "And about friends. What will happen to them when we land, where we'll all go, things like that."

Now Rem tilted her head, curious. "Where would we go? Why wouldn't we all stay close together? You know that when we make planetfall, each ship becomes like its own small town, and eventually we'll link up with the others as we colonize the planet, but all of us on this ship, we'll all be close together. What, are you worried that I'll leave you?"

The boy's ears reddened a bit more. "Maybe."

"Or are you just worried that your doughnut supply will run out?" she teased.

Vash managed to laugh around his embarrassment. "Yeah, that's it exactly."

Rem shifted positions and looked the young Vash in his eyes. "I'm not going to leave you behind. Period."

Vash's smile and laughter faded and a little boy's scowl replaced them. "But you left Alex and you didn't want to, but you had to. What if you have to leave me?"

For the first time, Rem's smile fell. "What happened between me and Alex is between me and Alex, and I didn't leave him. It's just that…he's gone now, all right?"

"And what if you feel like you have to leave me?"

"I won't." Rem's eyes closed and she turned her head away. "Vash, please understand. Over time, things changed. Things happened. The…what Alex and I had is different from what you and I have together. I'm here to take care of you and your brother. I'm staying by your side forever. I promise. And I haven't broken a promise to you yet, have I?" She nodded at the plate of doughnuts she'd brought as proof.

"No, I guess not."

She reached out and took the hand that wasn't covered in doughnut glaze. Or rather, the hand that was least covered. Her smile, her beautiful, dazzling smile returned. "You and I are together 'til the end. Whenever that is, however far off it is, I'm sticking with you two."

And Vash lost himself in her words. He knew that Rem would be there for him and his brother with all her heart, but in times like this, during doughnuts and chocolate and holding hands, young Vash could dare to imagine that every musical laugh, every sparkle in her clear eyes, and every exquisite smile was his and his alone and for no one else in the world.

As he gazed down at his left hand, the one Rem was holding, he felt a cold breeze on his face…

…and started as he realized where he was. His left hand, now a mechanical replacement—like his entire left arm—was exactly as he'd remembered it: the fingers apart as though holding a doughnut, his forearm extended so Rem could hold his hand. But of course she was not there.

The cold breeze that had shocked him from his reverie was merely the draft from the ventilators chilling his dampened cheeks. He hurriedly wiped his eyes and sniffed. _Bad dream,_ he thought. _That's all it is. A bad dream._

He looked back down at his left hand. It was gone, just like the rest of his arm, just like Rem herself. Warm, living flesh torn from the mortal world by fire and thunder. He tried not to think of what Rem had felt, how much more horrible her death—her cremation during reentry—had been than his maiming. Instead, he lifted his artificial left hand to his face and pondered it. He remembered Rem's teachings of the sanctity and value of life. Of _all_ life, not just the good and pure of heart. He flexed the mechanical fingers slightly, acutely aware of the automatic rifle that was housed in the forearm of his cybernetic limb. Would Rem hold his hand—_that hand_—now if she were at his side? Would she hold him close and bring him doughnuts again?

Vash closed his eyes and shook his head, placing his flesh and blood right hand over his left. _No. She wouldn't._ For all her promises of sticking beside him, even her forgiving nature couldn't countenance what he had done over the long years since her death. She would have left him.

He shook his head and moved away from the stacked suitcases on which he had been sitting. He didn't know where that train of thought would lead him any more than he knew where this ship would take him, but he was certain he wouldn't like it.

A single red star in the blackness caught his attention. Distant, almost too hard to see, it only made itself known by its rich crimson glow. _Red. Her color._ Ironic, he thought, that a single color could encompass passion and violence, romance and blood. _And in seeking the one, I have ended up embracing the other._ He sagged against a large metal container, his arms falling to his side. His right hand brushed his revolver and he weakly lowered his head to look at it.

He hadn't reloaded it since the fight in the cave; six expended casings sat patiently in the cylinder, their function fulfilled. His hand rested on the butt of the gun. _My heart is just like these empty chambers. I've spent all that my heart had on just one or two things. On Rem, on my brother. I have nothing left any more, just like my gun._

Yes. That was it. He was empty inside, and not a physical hunger to be assuaged by doughnuts or salmon sandwiches. He was incomplete, fragmented. So many years he had played the fool to mask the aching emptiness, using his buffoonery to put on a cheerful front for those he met. Like Milly and Meryl, for example.

He almost felt a smile tickle the corners of his mouth. Milly. The tall apprentice to Meryl Stryfe, with her wide, expressive eyes and innocent naïveté, was what Rem would have called a pure soul. She was honest, caring, supportive, and everything a friend should be. _I can guarantee that Meryl's glad to have her along…_

Meryl. Vash brought himself up short. Just then, as a few times before, a tingle raced through his gut at the thought of the diminutive insurance investigator. An image of her face flashed before his eyes; except for the shorter hair, he could have sworn it was Rem again, but no—again a flicker of a smile—he had always looked up to Rem, but he looked down to meet Meryl's eyes. Not that he looked down on her. Far from it. She was incredibly…he paused. He had been about to use words that he had previously ascribed only to Rem.

There was that twinge of guilt, that shameful feeling that he had betrayed his first love _again_, but then, why should there be? They were so similar in so many ways. Each woman had a strength of character, a willful determination about them. They each had the same dark, soulful eyes, even their faces were the same. And Meryl even seemed to have feelings for him, perhaps even the same as Rem had once had?

Vash slumped to the floor, resting his back against a wall and closing his burning eyes. The darkness he had been fighting was winning, but each time he closed his eyes, he saw an image of…_Meryl?_

"_I was wondering where you were," she said, taking a seat across from him on another suitcase. "Been turning this ship inside out looking for you. I'm glad I found you."_

"_Are you? Why?"_

_Meryl shrugged, not meeting his eyes. "There are things I want to say. Or need to say, depending on how you look at it."_

_Vash shifted position. "What things? Do you want a doughnut while we talk?"_

_She laughed softly. "No, thank you. I came to tell you a few things that have been on my mind."_

"_About insurance? I don't think Bernardelli will cover what happened on the planet," Vash said, slipping back into his mugging and silliness out of habit._

_Meryl shook her head and said, "Not insurance, but about, well, us. Do you feel some kind of…do you feel anything…toward me?"_

_Vash fidgeted and cocked his head to the side. "Well, I think you're a great insurance representative. You're very intelligent and professional…"_

"_Is that it?"_

"…_and quite…beautiful, really." There. It was out._

_She looked back at him finally. "You think so? Really?"_

"_Well, I did say 'really' there at the end," he replied, aping a few silly faces as he'd done before, but he stopped. Now was not the time for inanities. She was serious. _This_ was serious. "Yes. I do."_

_Getting up and pacing about, Meryl went to the viewport and began wringing her hands. "I've noticed something about you, Vash. Something wonderfully…I don't know. Something."_

"_What would it be?" he asked gently._

"_For starters, there's the fact that although you've been surrounded by carnage and insanity, you've never become part of it," she answered, looking at her hands. "You draw your gun but never kill. You even use your Angel Arm and try to avoid killing, all while everyone around you is slinging bullets and bombs without regard for anyone else."_

"_That's not true," Vash replied. "I've killed, betrayed everything I've been taught and the one who taught me."_

"_But still, it's not _you._" Meryl sighed. "There wasn't any choice when you had to kill someone. I know that."_

"_How can you? You weren't there."_

"_Because I know you," she answered. "You're a…you're a pure hearted man. You haven't committed the crimes people have said you did, and I've seen you playing with kids, putting your life on the line for strangers because you felt you had to, and when Milly or I have needed your help, you've always been there to offer it, even when we were trying to catch you."_

_The Stampede rose. "Like I said back on the planet, people are people and they do as they do. I can't fault them for it, nor you for doing what you do. It was what you felt you had to do at the time."_

"_See? You're so forgiving, like you can't hold a grudge against anyone for anything."_

"_Not true," he whispered. "I hated for a time. Knives, my brother, was responsible for Rem's death."_

"_Rem?"_

_Vash nodded. "Yes. She was the one I mentioned, the one who taught me about the value of life, about how to live and bring light to the world, not death."_

"_Then I owe her more gratitude than I can say," Meryl said._

"_How so?"_

"_Because if she made you the man you are, I'm grateful to her," Meryl replied, turning to look up at him. "I don't know how to say this, but I think I may be…I might have fallen…"_

_A gentle hand, his real hand, rested on her shoulder. "Go ahead and say whatever's on your mind. You came all the way down here to talk to me; don't waste the opportunity."_

_She sighed again, looking out the viewport. "I…do you see that red star? That dim one with the deep glow? I thought of you when I saw it."_

"_Why? My coat?"_

"_Because of what red means to me."_

_Vash's hand slipped off her shoulder. "Blood?"_

"_Romance."_

"_Ruin."_

"_Passion," she countered._

"_Anger."_

"_Love."_

"_Not for me."_

"_What do you mean?" she challenged. "It doesn't mean love for you? But what if it does for me?"_

_He swallowed hard. "No, I mean you can't love me."_

"_I…I never said I did, but…yes, I can. I do."_

"_No," he repeated. "You can't."_

"_What, I need your permission?"_

"_It's impossible for you to love me," Vash said. "Look at me. I'm not human. I'm what they call a Seed. And look at my arm. I'm not even completely Seed."_

"_Flesh does not make a man a man, and the loss of a limb does not lessen his humanity."_

_Vash struggled to find the words. "I don't think I'm what you want in a man, even for a crush or a boyfriend, much less a long-term companion."  
"I'll decide that," Meryl said. "And I think you are."_

"_But what if I can't love you?"_

"_But what if you can?"_

"_I can't," Vash said, a spasm crushing his chest as he spoke._

_Meryl took his hands in hers. "Why not? What could be stopping you from even trying?"_

"_Because I…twice now, I've turned my back on what Rem taught me. Who can say I won't betray your trust?"_

"_It comes with the territory, Vash," Meryl said. "A risk we all take if we take part in the human race."_

"_And I told you, I'm not human."_

"_Yes, you are," she said, tapping a finger against his chest. "You're as human as anyone I've met. More than that, you're human enough for me."_

_Vash stepped away from her. He wanted so badly to explore what she was offering. It was almost as if he could feel his heart filling back up as she spoke to him, almost as it did when Rem would speak. But he couldn't, could he? He was impure, imperfect, and he would corrupt her. He knew it. "I don't know how to say it, but I'll try. To be perfectly honest, I do…I think I just might love you, too, but there's too much for me to think about right now. I mean, am I 'in love' with you because you remind me so much of Rem, or because I've just been through so much that I'll leap at any chance for love?"_

"_I can't answer, but you won't know until you try," Meryl said, reaching out for his arm. It didn't seem to matter to her that she had grasped his artificial arm; she treated it as part of him and that made him…_

_His right hand rested atop hers as she clutched his arm. "I can't. I won't."_

"_Why not?"_

"_Because you deserve so much more than what I can give you. I'm afraid I'll drag you down to ruination with me, or…or something."_

"_But…but if you love me, and if I love you, why can't we…?" She was starting to cry, Vash saw, and it wrenched his heart._

_Why couldn't she see he was doing it to her already? "I love you too much to make you a part of my life. It's not for you. You're like your friend, Milly. You're a pure soul, like her."_

_Meryl foundered for words. "Then what about us? We love each other. What are we supposed to do then? Just forget each other and walk away?"_

"_It might be best, but I don't know what else to do."_

"_But I love you," she protested, beginning to sob. "And you said you love me."_

"_But it's not to be," Vash said, pulling back. He had no idea why he was doing this. Wasn't this his fondest wish, to have someone in his life as he'd had before? "It can't be."_

"_Then what do we do?"_

_Vash averted his eyes. "All we can do. Weep for lost loves, for might-have-beens."_

"_That's easy enough…"_

"…because I have plenty of tears to spare," she rasped, staring out the viewport at a single red star. The tears welling up in her eyes made it sparkle with a beautiful, bittersweet glittering.

"What did you say, _sempai_?" came a soft voice from behind her.

Meryl shook her head and held her arms tightly to herself. In her reflection, Milly could see her friend mouth the word, "Nothing." But there was no sound.

Milly put down the tray she'd brought and went to her friend's side. The pudding could wait. "_Sempai,_ are you all right?" She leaned forward, putting her face beside Meryl's as she clasped the smaller woman's shoulder.

Meryl turned and buried her face in Milly's strong shoulder, weeping silent tears into her closest friend's cloak. The tall woman softly stroked Meryl's head. Propriety be damned, her _sempai_ needed her, and as always, Milly would be there for her.

The transport was almost to the gate, but Milly could still see the ruby flame of a red star in the distance.


End file.
